


you look great when I'm fucked up

by blackwayfarers



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Surfing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 06:45:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackwayfarers/pseuds/blackwayfarers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sun sets while they get stoned, falling like a coin tossed into the ocean, and the calm of night takes over Zayn's awful day. The boys keep up a lazy conversation about surfing but Zayn doesn't say much at all, he just chases the taste of rum out of his mouth with sticky smoke from Niall's joint and listens to his boys talk, the murmur of their voices and the buzz of his high bringing him back home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you look great when I'm fucked up

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to K for her beta and her face. Title comes from the Brian Jonestown Massacre song of the same name.

Zayn leaves his Jeep idling while they wait for Liam to finish class, the rest of the boys piled up in the back. Ever since they got caught skipping class last week, Zayn's been a bit fidgety about coming back to the scene of the crime, so he's got his foot hovering over the gas pedal like they're the getaway at a bank robbery. Liam, of course, refuses to skip his afternoons (AP Chem and Trig, the fucking suck up) so at 3:10 every day they drive back to the beat-up yellow-bricked shithouse of a school, risking suspension just to pick him up.

Harry, Louis, and Niall are bunched up in the backseats, wearing their matching pairs of pink sunglasses they found at a 7-11 that afternoon, asking what time it is every thirty seconds and receiving Zayn's very casual one-fingered salute in return. Harry and Louis amuse themselves with a sharp and fast game of bloody knuckles (Louis always wins; Harry doesn't seem to have the heart to hit him.) Niall's got his tongue bitten between his teeth, busying himself with rolling a joint on the thigh of his red and black flowered board shorts, pinching the last fluff of some awful skunk he bought off his cousin and shaping it into a fat cone.

They spark up while they wait. Niall gets the first long drag, clouding himself in the yellowed wreath of smoke that seems to always surround him like the halo in painted icons of saints. He takes a few calm, zen-like pulls and lets them waft out of his smiling mouth, always trying to perfect his French inhale, pulling the smoke in through his nose again. He takes another meditative drag until Louis (by now punching Niall's arm repeatedly in the same place) takes the joint off him and pulls in a few short sharp drags of his own. 

"You want?" Louis asks Zayn, his voice tight with the smoke still in his lungs.

"No, man, I'm driving," Zayn says. Instead he takes out his beaten up pack of Marlboros from the breast pocket of his flannel shirt, tapping out a cigarette and holding it between his teeth. Harry passes him his lighter from the back seat and Zayn takes in his first lungful of smoke since he decided to give up the habit, forty minutes ago.

Harry, Louis, and Niall burn half their joint before the final school bell goes, the sharp ring startling Harry from his high. His paranoia while stoned always makes Zayn laugh, but he's just not into it today. Zayn puffs steadily on his cigarette, drumming his fingers on the wheel impatiently.

"Relax," Louis says from the back, his feet propped on the window ledge, crossed at the ankle. It's a shitty old Jeep Wrangler from the 90s that has long since been missing its canvas covering, just an engine and the metal bars of a rollcage that Louis uses like a jungle gym. It's a great car, when it isn't raining. "He's coming. He's always first out. Liam's good like that."

The students start pouring out a few minutes after the bell and, sure enough, Liam is leading the charge. He's got his neat little shoulder bag crossed over his chest, walking at a half-jog as he stuffs the last of his books inside it.

"Get in, man," Zayn says sharply when Liam is close enough, watching him in the rearview mirror. Liam tosses his bag in first and does a neat Dukes of Hazzard vault over the door that habitually refuses to open, landing in his usual shotgunned seat. Louis often wonders (loudly) why the fuck Liam always gets shotgun even when he's not here to call it, but Zayn just tells him that it's his damn Jeep and he gets to decide who sits up front.

"Thanks for waiting," Liam says, like he says every day. 

Zayn peels out of the parking lot like they're being chased, rolls through the stop sign, and pulls onto the main road that leads to the beach. He blows out a puff of smoke and gets his first proper look at Liam, a quick jerk of his head hello.

" _Li-am_ ," Niall singsongs, leaning up between the front seats. "Hey."

"You stoned?" Liam asks, fondly condescending because he knows the answer. It's always the same answer.

"Like a cake," Niall says. Liam laughs, his eyes squinting with his smile. "No, no, that's not it. I'm _baked_. Like a cake."

"Hey, Niall," Liam says, Niall leaving a pert little kiss on his cheek.

"How was book learning?" Louis asks, digging his knees into the back of Liam's seat. 

"Organic chem is ruining my life," Liam says. "How was your surf?"

"Nothing, Liam," Harry answers for Louis, still working on the last of the joint. "Nothing's breaking today. Just little kids stuff."

"So what'd you do instead?" Liam asks. He always gets this way, Zayn's noticed. He won't skip out and join them in their stolen afternoons but he needs to be filled in immediately about their whole day, like he's worried about getting left out by his own stupid insistence on being educated. Zayn kind of gets it in a way; Liam's never really made sense in their group, and no one really understands why he'd hang around with a bunch of burn outs like them. Harry, Louis, and Niall had been surfing since they were kids, but they've never really graduated beyond their own sloppy self-taught method, zig-zagging wildly across the waves, standing up on their boards but looking completely out of control. Liam's been winning competitions since he was twelve, the kind of surfer who slices waves clean in half. He met Kelly Slater when he was fourteen and the dude even fucking complimented him on his style, which Liam never tires of telling them. He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke – if it weren't for the fact that Liam seems to subsist entirely on coca cola Zayn might have thought he was a Mormon. But here he is, and for some stupid reason they love him like a brother in arms and no amount of chem homework and teetotaling is going to break that. Then again, Zayn doesn't even surf and he's part of the group, so who the fuck knows what the rules are anyway.

"Just kind of lay out, took it all in," Niall says. His nose and cheeks have gone pink from the afternoon, Zayn notices, in the exact shape of his cheap sunglasses. Despite living in California, Niall never seems to color beyond his pasty white. He'll burn, for sure, but the red will just fade cleanly back to white after.

"Got high?" Liam translates, twisting in his seat to look back at them.

"For sure," Niall says, leaning back in his middle seat, his sunbleached blond hair blowing in the wind. He's getting into his cuddly stoned zone now, curling into Harry's side and resting there.

"Nothing really, man, you didn't miss much," Louis says. "Got some burgers, some sun. Punched Harry in the junk."

"Not cool," Harry says, though he doesn't sound too bothered by it.

Liam nods tightly and sits back properly in his seat. He punches Zayn's shoulder gently. "How bout you, dude?" Liam can never quite get the handle on the word _dude_ , a little too surfer try-hard but somehow endearing for how misplaced it sounds.

"Nothing," Zayn says, shrugging one shoulder. "Just got some photos. I don't know." He flings the butt of his cigarette out the window – or, well, where the window would be if his Jeep had walls or windows or a roof – and immediately taps his pocket for another one.

Liam takes it out for him. He knows Zayn is a nervous driver and this has become a familiar routine. Liam takes a cigarette out of the pack, props it between Zayn's lips and cups the twitching flame of his zippo against the tip.

"Thanks," Zayn says as he pulls onto the freeway and down towards the beach.

"Those things will kill you," Liam says again with a little smile. It's what he always says when Zayn has a cigarette in front of him.

"Hey, I quit this afternoon, just for you," Zayn says.

"How long this time?"

"Four hours," Zayn lies.

"I admire your resolve," Liam says, and Zayn can never tell if he's joking or a little sad about it. 

"Hey, fuck you, I tried," Zayn says, and though he meant it as a joke but he knows it came out too harsh. "Sorry," he adds immediately. "I'm getting testy cause I quit. For you."

Liam smiles then, though there's still a little twitch of tension at the corner of his mouth. Zayn knows he fucked up their pattern of banter and he already feels like a tool, this day breaking down faster than Zayn wants, revealing too much of how he's feeling too quickly. "Told you cold turkey doesn't work," Liam says.

"We can make a deal: you quit acting like a suck and I'll quit smoking," Zayn replies, trying to find his balance again.

"It would never work," Liam says. "I can't stop acting like a suck." His smile is a little shy, like he's worried Zayn might snap at him again.

Zayn laughs, once and short. "True."

There's a moment of silence between them, just Harry and Louis playfighting like usual in the back and Niall napping peacefully curled up between them. They hit the really beautiful part of the drive down the PCH, where it opens between two valleys and they hit the coast, a thicket of dwarf palms and scraggly bushes spiked like a punk and then thirty feet of beautiful empty beach that collapses into the foaming surf of the Pacific. 

"You okay, Zayner?" Liam asks. It's a stupid fucking nickname but Liam made it up when they were kids and Zayn made sure that only he is allowed to use it, which makes it kind of okay. 

Zayn gives a quick shrug, and then puffs out a cloud of smoke that's whipped away immediately by the rushing wind. "The usual."

Liam doesn't frown, knows Zayn well enough that sympathy kind of puts him on edge. He just pats the back of Zayn's neck, his fingers lingering for a moment on his nape. "You could come over tonight, if you want," Liam says.

Zayn wants to immediately reject the offer like he normally does, but he's trying not to actively be an asshole to people he cares about today. "Thanks, man. It's okay, really."

Liam nods, but seems unsatisfied. "Okay."

"Really," Zayn says then, another drag from this cigarette, slipping the smoke out from the corner of his mouth, "I appreciate it, but it's cool, nothing's wrong."

"Right," Liam says, but he doesn't seem any happier with that.

*

Mercifully they pull up to their beach fifteen minutes later. It's just a hidden stretch of sand off the highway, tucked behind hill. There's a shambling remains of an old lifeguard tower from the 1950s but other than that the place is deserted. Any beach will do for just a casual afternoon of waves, but this is the place they go for seclusion and privacy, like a half-mile of sandy clubhouse made just for them. Zayn drives onto the shoulder and, with a bump, onto the rough. He parks at his usual spot, under a palm and far enough away that they can't be seen from the road.

Harry and Louis wake Niall up from his nap and the three of them pile out of the Jeep and start their daily stripshow. Tanktops are pulled off, sunglasses thrown into the backseat, their scuffed up Chucks next. Running down to the beach, they dig their old and roughly beaten longboards from the fallen timber of the lifeguard tower, their secret stash because five guys and four boards don't fit in Zayn's Jeep. Liam and Zayn watch them from the under the palm, shielding their eyes as the sun makes its crawl down towards the Pacific. 

"You bring your camera?" Liam asks.

"Course," Zayn says. "I mean I've got a billion fucking pictures of you guys surfing but I always bring it. I can never figure out why."

"Ah," Liam says. "Because maybe today is the day a shark eats Louis. Wouldn't want to miss that."

"It'd be great," Zayn says. "And if it was right at sunset, I'd get the dorsal fin and Louis in silhouette. That'd be a fucking shot, man."

Liam laughs, fading out into careful silence. 

"Dude, you don't need to babysit me," Zayn says, pushing him gently. "I'm not going to fall apart. Go surf."

Liam looks at him steadily once more, but he breaks out into a smile. "All right, dude."

The stripshow is always harder for Liam. He's still dressed for school, so it's a bit of a labour unbuttoning white Oxford cotton shirt, undoing the leather strap of his belt, tugging down his (always perfectly pressed) jeans. It's no wonder people never understand why Liam hangs out with them; Harry and Louis in their who-gives-a-fuck day-glo shorts and thirft store tees; Niall with his perpetual tanktop and shorts; Zayn with his flannel shirts, torn jeans, ash grey hoodies, and general air of being the host body for the tormented spirit of mid-90s Seattle. Liam digs a pair of his plain blue board shorts from his shoulderbag and – modestly turning his back to Zayn – tugs down his boxers and jumps quickly into his shorts. Every day Zayn gets a good eyeful of the shockingly pale full moon of his ass and, even today, it makes him laugh. 

Zayn steps out of his combat boots and rolls the cuffs of his jeans up mid-calf like Tom Sawyer. He takes his camera – not his good one, just a used Canon from the 80s that Liam bought him for his sixteenth birthday – out of his bag and follows Liam down onto the beach and towards the water. With one last smile, Liam gives an awkward little wave and takes his board down to the ocean.

Zayn finds a spot in the sand and sits. He doesn't mind being left out like this, he likes watching his boys surf. The waves are breaking short and shallow today, nothing bigger than two feet which means the guys are generally just paddling out a good ways and cruising back sitting on top of the wave, bailing when they get too close to shore in an increasingly hilarious attempt to one-up each other with dramatic falls.

It's funny how obvious Liam's training has honed his craft. Niall pops up on his board like a lunatic, springing up like he's trying to catch the wave off guard, surprising it with his body. It leads to a shaky, though oddly effective, surf, wobbling the whole while like he's going to fall off, though never actually falling. Liam does it like a professional though, stomach flat to the board and then moving up cleanly and quickly, as agile as a puma going for a strike. He stands there on top of his board and – almost smugly, Zayn thinks – surfs back to shore, even going so far as crossing his arms like he's unimpressed by the ocean. 

Zayn gets in a few snaps, but with waves this shallow and nothing in the frame but the boys and the sun, they're pretty stupid pictures. He always gets at least one though, a shot that he develops every weekend (if he remembers), jotting down the date on the back in sharpie and tucking it into an old printer paper box like a picture diary of these days. 

When he bores with adjusting and readjusting his focus, trying to figure out how best to shoot directly at the sun, Zayn puts his camera in its case and rests it in the sand next to him. Immediately he goes to his Marlboros, tugging out two – one going between his lips, the other behind his ear. He knows that he should be spending his time trying to figure shit out – _okay, if his mom's moving out, he's sure as fuck not living with his dad, but where will she move, will it be close enough to stick with the boys, what about his sisters, fuck_ – but an ache almost as loud as his need for a cigarette just tells him to shut the fuck up and enjoy the afternoon, or the bits of it he's managed not to ruin. 

The sun just touches the flat plane of the ocean's horizon when Liam gives in for the day, trudging out of the water with his board in one arm and tugging down his wet shorts from his upper thighs. Louis, Harry, and Niall follow him, a directionless band of otters when their calm and professional surf-leader leaves them. 

"How was it?" Zayn asks, Liam dropping his board and sitting down in the sand next to him. His hair, wild and curly even when he tries to tame it, is a dark, seaweed tangle dripping salt water everywhere. Water clings to his eyelashes, and his eyes are red from the salt. He wipes his mouth with an equally wet hand and laughs.

"Nothing. It's too calm. We were pretty much boogie boarding," Liam says, sniffing. 

"What do you think?" Zayn asks. "Stay here or head back for a burger?"

"I brought some sandwiches," Liam says, smiling sheepishly like he does when he's been caught _caring_ , the idiot. "And Niall and Harry mentioned wanting to chill here tonight."

"All right," Zayn says, standing up then and brushing his jeans of. "I'll start gathering."

The scrub brush between the highway and the beach is rich with dead branches and twigs, dried driftwood that echoes hollow when tapped, the kind of dead palm leaves that make for the best kindling. He gathers a good armful of it, dropping it in the round back circle of ash they decided long ago was their firepit. He starts setting up a little tent of twigs, a tripod of firewood, and by the time the other boys have dragged their sorry asses from the Jeep (changing back into their clothes; board shorts traded for dry clothes, requiring that they go commando underneath) Zayn's got a nice little fire going.

"Aw, Zayn, perfect," Niall says, popping down next to him, cross-legged and clearly on the tail-end of his high, the rosy dreaminess leaving his voice. He leans over to rest his head on Zayn's shoulder, giving it a perfunctory kiss. "You wanna blaze, man?"

The rest of the boys fill out the circle, Liam on Zayn's other side. Zayn catches his eye and Liam gives him a curious smile. "S'all right if I smoke up, dude?"

Liam gives a quick little nod. "I don't mind driving home."

"Let's do it," he tells Niall.

Niall starts rolling his fourth joint of the day on the leg of his shorts from his seemingly never ending dirty ounce of trash weed. Zayn snaps one of his cigarettes in half and hands it over to Niall, who bolsters the joint with the flaked tobacco. Zayn's always loved watching Niall roll a joint ever since he saw the kid do it one-handed in the back of the Jeep while they were driving down the highway, not losing a single molecule of green from start to finish. If God only gives each person one gift, Niall's is rolling joints. As practiced as a magician doing sleight of hand, he can go from grinder to lips in twenty seconds flat. He knows about thirty different shapes, some of them taking two or three sheets of Zig Zags to complete, roses and crosses and megaphones of THC. Harry once made him roll a joint blindfolded and it came out so perfect that Harry still thinks he cheated. Neat pink little tongue slipping across the tacky end of the paper, Niall seals the joint with a look of total calm, like a master swordsman finishing another perfect razor-edged katana.

"Take the first hit," Niall says, tucking the joint into Zayn's palm. It's a pretty special gift, getting the first drag off of Niall's bud, but all at once Zayn knows that he's probably not hiding today's shit as well as he thought he was. For Liam to notice, sure, Zayn expected that, Liam notices everything, but he's got to look totally wrecked if Niall's giving him first blood.

"Thanks," Zayn says quickly, placing the joint between his lips.

He flicks his zippo out of his pocket, strikes the flint, and takes in a huge breath as the tip glows violently orange. The smoke is sticky and rank, some shitty backwoods strain Niall's cousin swears by even though they live in the same fucking state as Humboldt County, the Shangri-La of good weed. But then again, Niall gets the stuff for $50 an ounce and passes it on to all of them for free so none of them have any right to complain. 

The cherry flares when Zayn sucks in, the joint crackling like milk poured on cereal. The first breath of the resinous, molasses smoke sears the back of Zayn's throat, but like any good smoker he hides his idiotic habit with a polite clearing of the throat. Almost immediately Zayn can feel the chemicals do their good work, slipping into his blood and running wild in his nervous system, calming all the screaming synapses and raging neurons to a choir-like hum of good feelings. 

"Needed that," Zayn says, handing the joint back to Niall. His voice has gone raspy from the smoke, and they trade the guilty little smiles that come from misbehaving even though they've been smoking weed and getting drunk since they were thirteen.

"Hungry?" Liam asks. Zayn notices that in his brief dream of smoke that Liam has been handing out sandwiches – PB&J, turkey and mayo – to Louis and Harry like a supervisor on a school trip. Zayn half-expects him to pull out juice boxes next, but it turns out Louis already thought of that with his bottle of Captain Morgan and two liters of coke.

It's too early for the munchies but Zayn takes one of each sandwich, wolfing down half of the turkey in three bites. "You think of everything."

Even though Zayn can't see it in the firelight, he knows Liam is blushing. "You eaten today?"

"We got burgers at the thing, I told you," Zayn says, finishing off the second half of the sandwich with equal speed.

"Did you eat anything today?" Liam, patiently, asks again.

"Good sandwiches," Zayn says instead.

The joint and the Captain Morgan chase each other around the campfire, skipping over Liam, of course. He's content with awkwardly drinking his coke, all of them laughing at him as he spills a little down his chin with every huge swig from the two liter bottle. The sun sets while they get stoned, falling like a coin tossed into the ocean, and the calm of night takes over Zayn's awful day. The boys keep up a lazy conversation about surfing but Zayn doesn't say much at all, he just chases the taste of rum out of his mouth with sticky smoke from Niall's joint and listens to his boys talk, the murmur of their voices and the buzz of his high bringing him back home. Weed always makes him dopey and sated, while the liquor fights back with wildness and sarcasm. Zayn pushes until he's on that perfect razor-edge, not too fucked up to be a mess but enough that all he really thinks about is how his skin tingles, and how the air smells like seaweed and woodsmoke, and how good it is to watch Liam laugh, the crinkles by his eyes, the way Louis can make him burst out at even the lamest joke.

"No, for real though," Louis says, and Zayn knows immediately where this conversation is going to go, Louis drunk enough to get that bitter kind of teenage maudlin. "We should all just, like, pool our money together and leave. Get out of here. Go buy a big house somewhere rad and far away from this fucking place, you know?"

"Yeah," Niall says dreamily, his cheeks and chest flush from the booze. "Just us."

"We could still surf and we could buy a big fucking house right on the water and we wouldn't have to deal with fucking daddy's little angel Porsche-owning popped-polo-collar Axe-bodyspray-marinated motherfuckers." This is Louis' favorite train of thought, his wild and endless _what ifs_ , all of them some variation of the five of them buying a house and living together far from people whose parents provide them with convertibles and shitty attitudes. "We'd wake up to Bloody Marys, lunch on beer, whiskey for dinner. Harry could cook. Liam can clean. We'll get a dog, a mutt, live off the grid, just us five. And the dog."

"And how much money are you putting in this pool, then?" Harry asks.

"Fuck you, I've got like a hundred and twenty saved up already."

"I've got fifty," Niall chips in.

"A hundred," Harry adds.

They all look at Liam then. He's prodding the campfire with a stick, trying to lift the wood to get some air in. "Eight thousand," he says finally, still looking into the fire. "Give or take."

" _Jesus_ ," Louis says. "I mean, of course you do, but still. The fuck do you do with your money?"

"I save it?" Liam says.

"Makes sense," Niall says thoughtfully, swaying where he sits. 

"You've got eight thousand bucks and you still make me buy you coffee in the morning?" Louis says, taking another hit off the rum.

"You do that cause you lost a bet," Harry points out.

"It's the principle, man," Louis says. "I bought this rum with change, for fuck's sake."

"More for the house," Liam says, looking up with a shy smile. Louis stares at him for a moment, obviously trying to find a way to make fun of him, but he crumbles down to a wry smile. It's like that with Liam a lot of the time; he's a sore thumb, the black sheep, the saint hanging out with sinners. You just want to shake him by the shoulders and ask him why the fuck he's got to be so good all the damn time, and then he'll just smile at you all _aw shucks_ and you can't help but love him despite yourself.

"Fucking better," Louis manages to say, with absolutely no venom in it at all.

They go on like that for a while, into the darkness, until the rum is drunk and they're all pretty buzzed. Places they could live, houses they could own, lives they could live together. It's all the usual pipe dream bullshit, but lately Zayn's been trying to block it out because all the _what if_ ing, the very idea that it could possibly happen and they could all live together in a house with no one else around, is starting to hurt more than it helps. Bitter pragmatism has been weighing down Zayn's life for the last year as his family has slowly run out of money and things all went to shit. The distant idea that he could just pick up and live some dumb beautiful drunken dream life with his adopted brothers is getting too painful to think about.

"You okay?" Liam says, sidling up to Zayn. It's only then that Zayn realises he's been staring at Liam.

"Yeah, sorry, zoned out," Zayn says, waving a hand to include the booze and weed as excuses.

"You haven't been talking much," Liam says. He's pretty tenacious about following up these kinds of things, Liam never one to leave someone feeling unhappy without at least giving it the old college try. 

"Been thinking too much," Zayn replies, trying to seem casual but failing. Liam's smile fades to a frown, and he leans in closer, always picking up on every hint Zayn wished were less obvious. There's no big thing that makes today worse than any other, no looming disaster, it's just that Louis is already going on about what he's going to name their seven dogs and Zayn is just so tired of maintaining some kind of chilled status quo. He's tired, tired of today in particular, and he's half-drunk at a secluded beach around a campfire with his four favourite people so he kind of just gives in, lets himself be fucking upset on Liam for a second. "Sorry, man. It's everything at home. I'm going crazy."

"Oh." Liam's frown turns pointed. He knows a bit about what's going on with Zayn's parents – Zayn has come over drunk at two in the morning looking for a place to stay too often for Liam not to clue in a bit – but he does the perfect thing and doesn't push too many questions on Zayn. "Stay over at mine tonight. You can even take my bed," he adds, a little smile.

Zayn wants to turn him down, but Liam is up against his side now, resting his head on Zayn's shoulder, his arm around the small of Zayn's back with a finger curled around a belt loop, and Zayn just gives one last fuck it for the day. "Yeah, man. Thanks."

"You will?" Liam says, sounding suddenly brighter.

Liam is such a frustrating dick sometimes, the way he flips every good thing he does until it's somehow like you're doing him a favor by accepting his help. It makes him impossible to thank, which just ends up making Zayn feel shitty for always dumping everything on him. It's not like Louis or Harry or Niall wouldn't understand and help him out, of course they would, there's just something about Liam and the way he can somehow make you feel better without even talking, can make you feel safe with nothing more than a touch and his wimpy little smile. Relying on him so much makes Zayn feel like a guilty asshole, but sometimes when he's awake in his shitty single bed at midnight listening to his parents argue, chaining new cigarettes off the dying ember of the last, he just wants to see Liam so bad it hurts, just wants to hug him, to smell the familiar comfort of his hoodie, listen to a terrible little joke that makes Zayn laugh nonetheless. 

"I'd never leave if I could," Zayn mumbles.

"You don't need to," Liam says softly. "You know my mom adores you. You could stay as long as you want."

Zayn thinks about it for a second, but it ends up hurting just as much as Louis' dreamed-up plans about running away. "Yeah, man, thanks," Zayn says again. He knows he must sound pathetic because Liam ends up snuggling closer to him. The smell of the sea is in Liam's hair, brackish and metallic, and underneath that the sweetness of peanut butter and the burnt bitterness of coffee. 

"Zayner?" Liam asks softly.

"Yeah, man?"

"Love you," Liam says, dopey and small.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Liam says. He sneaks these in sometimes, genuine emotion when Louis isn't paying attention so he won't get hit for it. It always sounds a little bit like a joke, a little bit like a promise.

"Then I love you too," Zayn says, and maybe his sounds much less like a joke than it should.

"You're, like, stoned and drunk, dude," Liam says gently.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean –"

"Just tell me when you're sober," Liam says, his voice whittled down to almost nothing now, barely audible under Louis' big laughter and crazy jokes and the spitting and crackling of the fire.

"Hah," Zayn says. "And when's that?"

Liam doesn't reply to that, but his grip gets a bit looser, and Zayn suddenly feels worse than he has all day.

*

They drive home just before Liam's eleven o'clock curfew. He's their ride, so even though Louis complains loudly that Liam is the only one with a curfew, damnit, they have to tag along. They're more stoned than drunk, which means the ride home is quiet, the three of them snuggled up in the back seat together, Niall already snoring gently where he is propped up between Harry and Louis. Zayn sits shotgun and absently puffs his way through his cigarettes, watching Liam.

Zayn's Jeep is a finicky animal, prone to moods and tantrums, and you need to know its every quirk in order to get it to work – knowing when to ride the clutch, skipping third gear when going into fifth, double-tapping the brakes to get to a full stop – but Liam has it all by heart, can probably drive the thing better than Zayn can. Buzzing on the warm weight of his drunk, Zayn gets easily absorbed in watching Liam drive; his big hands on the steering wheel, his relaxed shoulders and how his shirt is unbuttoned past his sternum, his precise obedience to speed limits. 

"What if you went to all your classes tomorrow?" Liam asks, his voice measured and careful. "And then after we can go out after and I could try to teach you how to swim. Again," he adds with a little laugh.

"Liam..."

Liam shrugs. "Or you could teach me how to use your camera?"

"It's Friday tomorrow," Zayn says.

"Oh, right," Liam says, his voice deflating. "Harry's thing."

"You're always invited, dude," Zayn says, even though he knows Liam spends his Friday nights going to visit his sister in Ojai. 

"Yeah, maybe," Liam says noncommittally. 

"But I'd." Zayn pauses. "Like that, the swimming part," he says limply, even though he really wouldn't like that at all. Zayn has always maintained that swimming is just recreational drowning. 

"All right," Liam says. "Some other time, then."

"Liam," Zayn says, his voice trailing off pathetically.

"No, it's okay," Liam says, an artificial kind of brightness. 

"I love you," Zayn tries again, and hates his smoke-raspy, rum-stuttered voice so much. The worst thing is that he fucking means it right now, all the time, but it always comes out like he's half-joking, just dudes in a bromance, no homo, back slapping, fist-bumping. 

Liam is quiet for a while. "It's okay," Liam says, so quiet Zayn can barely hear him. "Let's get these guys home."

*

By the time they drop the rest of the boys at home they're already an hour past Liam's curfew. Liam doesn't seem that bothered about it, the kind of kid whose parents know that he must have a good reason for being late and would forgive him the next morning. When they pull up to Liam's modest little bungalow, all the lights in the house are out, vacant eyes staring out at them.

"Might as well sneak in," Liam says. "Don't wanna wake them up."

"Look at you," Zayn says, grinning. "Rebel, rebel."

"I know, I'm a wild child," Liam says, pocketing the keys to the jeep and leading Zayn around to the back of the house. He easily jimmies the screen out of his open window, hoists himself up and wriggles into his bedroom, doing a neat forward somersault and landing catlike on the ground. Liam's head pokes up a minute later, grinning at Zayn from inside. "Come on, dude."

Still a little drunk, Zayn does the same vault but instead of a neat little fall he collapses to the ground of Liam's bedroom in a heap.

"Jesus," Liam hisses, trying desperately not to laugh out loud. "Way to not wake them up."

"I'm fine, by the way," Zayn says, rolling over onto his back. Stars are bursting behind his eyes, the kind of dizzying, disassociated twirl he gets when he's stoned. He stares up at the ceiling, the stucco spinning like a time-lapse photo of the night sky, his back and knees aching, his desire to just sleep right here really, really tempting right now.

"You want the bed?" Liam asks, unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way and tugging it off. Zayn can hear the clink of his belt as it hits the ground. Liam towers over Zayn, tall and solid and dressed only in his loose Simpsons boxers, interrupting the twirling constellations of the ceiling with an offered hand. The hair on his legs is sparse and dark, and so is the thin trail of it leading to the taut lip of his belly button. Zayn can see all of his freckles on his skin, splattered on him like a flick of black ink from a paintbrush. 

"We can share," Zayn mumbles.

"Head to toe?"

"Head to head, you fucking moron," Zayn says, taking Liam's hand and letting himself get hoisted up. "I'm not your awkward cousin forced to share a bed, I can lie next to another dude while I sleep."

"Ha, okay," Liam says, turning on his ceiling fan and crawling into his twin-sized bed. The mattress is pushed up into a corner of the very small room, dressed in the same Land Before Time sheets he's had since he was eight. Liam wriggles over to the far side of the bed, next to the wall, leaving a very conspicuous place for Zayn to occupy.

Zayn has a hard time undressing, tugging off his shirt, fumbling for the button of his jeans. In a fit he just yanks them down, naked except for his black boxer-briefs (adjusting his dick discreetly.) Compared to Liam, Zayn is kind of scrawny and bony, the build of a marathon runner to Liam's running back, though Liam always does the polite thing and calls him _lean_ rather than thin. It's never more evident than when he crawls into bed with Liam and tries to find a spot where he's not actively touching him, which is a hard thing to do with a guy who had a six pack from the age of thirteen. Liam seems to radiate warmth, like he's letting out the heat he absorbed during a day of full-on sunshine. His smell is all over the place, fabric softener and the slight lemon cologne he wears when he has a date and the slight stink of teenage boy. Even though they lie back to back, Zayn smiles despite himself because he just feels relaxed, for once, like he's being held safe. 

"All right," Liam says, his voice muffled up against the wall. "Sleep well, man."

"Night, dude," Zayn says. 

"Night, Zayner," Liam says, and it's so stupid, it's a dumb fucking nickname, and it makes Zayn grin so hard it hurts.

*

The fan ticks in rhythm as it spins, a little loose on the ceiling and wobbling in a usual dance. It counts out two ticks for every second, which Zayn only knows because he's been listening to it while staring at the blinking light of Liam's clockradio. Zayn isn't sure if it's the heat, or the scuzzy leftover of his high, or if it's the way Liam brushes up against him as he turns in dreams, but Zayn cannot fall asleep. The same old garbage floats around his head, the flotsam and jetsam of his shitty week, month, year, all of it playing over and over in his mind at regular intervals like a muezzin chanting Zayn's worthless adhan.

There are days when Zayn doesn't feel like a deadweight, but today isn't one of them. From the way he uselessly watches his family fall apart, to his grades slipping like bowling ball rolling down an icy hill, to the endless and shameful tug of war his brain engages in every time Liam so much as looks at him, all the way down to the fact that he can't even fucking swim and all his best friends are surfers. The weed and rum are wearing off, and all he's got left to think about is the sour taste in the back of his throat and the occasional brush of Liam's arm or shoulder against Zayn's, the fever-hot touch of his skin.

Zayn decides to at least cut one of the problems out of the equation. Carefully, he slips out of Liam's bed, gathers his smokes and lighter, and sits by the bay window. The house is nice but old, and the white paint is peeling off the wood in strips. The place where Zayn and Liam carved their names into the flaking paint when they were ten is almost completely rubbed away now. 

Zayn cranks open the window and props himself up on it, one leg in and one leg out. Lighting up a cigarette, he sits there straddling the window sill and blowing the smoke out into the night. The moon is out, almost full, and the crickets are going crazy. It's an exercise in keeping his mind of things, off of the shattered things and the volcanic things and the broken Liam things, so he counts the cricket chirps and tries to remember that old trick of figuring out the temperature by their noise. 

"Those'll kill you," Liam says softly.

Zayn almost falls off his perch. Liam is lying in his bed, propped up on one arm and looking at Zayn. His boxers have rolled down as he slept, and the blankets are low enough that he looks like he's naked. "Fuck, sorry, I didn't want to wake you up," Zayn says, immediately looking away again.

"You didn't really. I just kind of knew you left. Felt it." Zayn can hear the frown in Liam's voice.

"Oh," Zayn says, "right."

There's a moment of nothing, and then, in a very cautious voice Liam asks: "It's that bad, huh?"

"What?"

"Your family," Liam says. "Stuff."

"Oh," Zayn says. "That's just, like. One of a whole arsenal of shitty bombs falling right now."

"You wanna talk about it?" Liam asks, crawling out of bed and adjusting his boxers around his hips as he pads barefoot to the window, sitting down on the bay seat across from Zayn.

"Nah, Frasier Crane, I'm good," Zayn says, tapping ash out the window. 

Liam tucks his knees up to his chest, arms wrapped around them. Like this, late at night, almost naked, he has this soft and beaten look to him, reduced from seventeen to fourteen. His curly hair sticks up at odd angles, his eyes are round and damp, missed sleep is dark under his eyes like a bruise, his bare skin under the moon is like brushed silver. Looking at him like this, Zayn gets that same pang of want; for a home far away, for a way out, for a boy who's been nothing but the best thing since the first day they met. Zayn looks away and takes another burn of his cigarette.

"All right," Liam says. He reaches out, pats a hand on Zayn's knee, thumb playing along the inside of his leg. "But you know you always can talk to me, Zayner."

"Zayner," Zayn says, and even despite the shit he kind of laughs. "Payner."

Liam breaks into a surprised kind of smile. "You used to call me that. You never do anymore."

"Zayner and Payner, yeah," Zayn says, leaning back in his seat and huffing out a laugh. "You got me that fucking Lakers jersey with Zayner on the back. I always wanted to get you a Payner one to match but they're, like, a hundred and fifty bucks, dude."

"It's all right," Liam says, his voice lighter, thank fuck. "Really, it's fine. You should call me Payner sometime though, dude. Old time's sake."

"It's a dumb fucking nickname," Zayn says.

"Yeah," Liam says, warm and happy, "it kinda is."

Zayn smokes the last of his cigarette, crushes it out against the side of the house and then tosses it outside. He dismounts the window then, swinging his leg over and sliding down to sit on the bay seat next to Liam, shoulder to shoulder with their backs to the window. 

"I'm not going to graduate," Zayn says, huffing it out suddenly like he's been asked on a dare. "I'm like, twelve fucking credits short and there's only one semester left. I'm already failing history and bio this semester too, which would mean, like, eighteen credits short."

"Yeah," Liam says quietly. "I mean, you don't really. Go to class that much." Liam winces. "I mean, I'm not. You know I don't think –"

"No, I get it," Zayn says. "I'm probably going to drop out. Harry's flunking too. We're thinking about moving in together next year, working our shitty bugger flipping jobs together. Not exactly the big house we imagined."

"I've been applying to universities," Liam says. "Or, thinking about it."

"Yeah?" Zayn says. He's gotten pretty good at sounding supportive when he wants to be anything but. "Which ones?"

"UCLA, Davis, Irvine," Liam says. "Not going anywhere far, really," he adds, and Zayn knows it's for his benefit. 

"You should spread your wings," Zayn says, half-mocking. "Fly off into the wild blue whatever. Northwestern. NYU. Harvard, Princeton, Yale."

"I'm never moving anywhere where it snows," Liam says, bumping up against him a little so he knows it's a joke and not brushing him off. "Zayn, you know I could like, help you," Liam says, his voice dropping low and a little rough, nuzzling a little against Zayn's shoulder. "If you took an extra two classes next semester, and then two over the summer, you could graduate same year as me. Then maybe, I don't know, I don't need to live on campus. We could find somewhere off campus, and you could maybe work on doing SATs. It's not, like, it's not impossible, man."

Zayn actually laughs then, because he has to laugh. "Dude, you have this like, really cute habit of thinking I am fucking good at shit like that."

"And you have this cute habit of underestimating how great you are," Liam says, a slight hum of bitterness towards the end. "I really never understood that. I don't get why you say things like that."

"There's nothing to get," Zayn says.

"You don't know how good you can be," Liam replies quietly. "I don't think you've ever tried."

"I've fucking tried," Zayn says, not wanting this to be the way things go, not wanting it so badly. "We can't all be you."

Liam frowns, and Zayn knows he hit something he didn't mean to. "You don't see yourself like I do," Liam says, hiding the bruise Zayn knows he made. "I don't underestimate you."

"No one's underestimating shit," Zayn says, jerking away from Liam's touch suddenly, not even really surprised at how quickly he let everything fall apart. "You're just too nice to fucking notice. Or too stupid, or too - something. It's time you realised how fucking shit I am."

"Shut up," Liam says, and it's not angry, it's helpless. 

"I don't think I can – yeah, I'm going to go, okay?" Zayn says quickly. His head is empty, his insides hollow and aching. All he knows is that this was a mistake, telling Liam these things when the day has been so shitty and he's too tired to filter what he says. It's the exact fucking reason he doesn't talk about this stuff; Liam was the only one who ever thought Zayn was worth a damn, and Zayn can't bear to watch Liam lose that misguided love he put in Zayn when they were kids. He just wants to get out before he bruises his friendship with Liam more than he's done already, before he gets written off completely as a burn out, before Liam realises how wrong he was from the very beginning. He just cannot watch the walls fall down, the walls of a house he never realised how much he needed.

Zayn stands up quickly and gathers up his clothes, pulling on his jeans and buckling them, tossing his shirts over his shoulder. He finds his keys and pockets them too. 

Liam stands up then, grabbing Zayn by the shoulders. "Dude, it's fine, I'll drop it. Let's go back to sleep, I'm –" he chews on his bottom lip, and he looks genuinely upset, "I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to. You know I'd never – you know I think you're awesome –"

"It's cool, really," Zayn says quickly, ducking away from Liam and walking to the open window. Liam grabs hold of him before he can leave though, grips the lip of his jeans and pulls him back.

"Dude, you can't leave, it's like three in the morning, I'll go sleep on the couch if you want me to. Don't go though, don't go," Liam says, sounding more desperate as he goes on. "Please, please don't go. Don't go."

Zayn has got fuck all left – not much of a home, no grades, no money, no weed – and he does what you do when you've got fuck all left, when there's only one thing left to ruin: he grabs a hand at the back of Liam's neck, leans up, and kisses him. Zayn wants it to be a hard and defiant kiss, the kind of kiss that might be a statement, a fuck you, a shut the fuck up, but when Liam makes a strangled little noise and then _relaxes_ into it, his mouth parting, his hands going around Zayn to pull him in, Zayn forgets the rebellion. He lets himself – like a fucking idiot he _lets himself_ – get drawn in, melting against Liam, opening his mouth to the slight flick of Liam's tongue. He had no idea what he expected from this bullet of a kiss, but it isn't this; tasting Liam, feeling the brush of his slight stubble, hearing the little hum of pleasure like a bass note running through his bones. This feeling in his chest like a bird taking wing, this plaintive gasp in his throat like years of want collapsing inwards.

Neither of them really pull apart, but the kiss ends. Their foreheads bump together and Zayn is holding his breath like he pulled the pin of a grenade. Liam isn't smiling, he isn't showing much of anything actually. His eyes are closed, and his face has that kind of doped up softness like he's just woken up from a deep sleep. On reflex Zayn pulls back, lets go of Liam and takes a stuttering step away, 

"I'm really sorry," Zayn says, his hands shaking. "Fuck, I am so fucking. Fuck." And then Zayn is climbing the open bay window, getting a leg over the sill, and Liam still doesn't say anything. He just stands there in the middle of his bedroom looking completely lost, watching Zayn blankly, his cheeks flushed red and his bottom lip worried between his teeth and his hands frozen by his side. 

It's the last thing Zayn sees before he throws the other leg over the windowframe and hops out of the bedroom, running from the bungalow and towards the ocean.

*

Zayn wakes up with the sun and a steady weatherbeaten hangover thumping against his temples, his clothes covered in sand. He's on a beach, some scrubby nothing beach, a thin bar of sand propped up against rocks. The sand is coarse here, damp and cold on his clammy skin and Zayn realises he fell asleep curled around his hoodie in the shade of a boarded up beach shack. After a few minutes taking in the morning, Zayn stands up, sighs, and brushes the sand off his skin before wrestling into his dew-damp hoodie.

The hangover does a pretty good job of hammering out any other white noise, leaving Zayn with a headache and not much else to think about. He remembers last night, knows exactly why he ended up sleeping on the beach, but the beating in his head keeps it at arm's length. Zayn is almost glad for this hangover, actually. 

His car keys poke into his thigh and Zayn gives a silent prayer that he at least remembered that. It's early, probably about six, and the neighbourhood is still dead. The air has that freshly cleaned smell, the way California gets under the dampness of the night, before the sun has a chance to make everything hot and sweaty again. Zayn's Jeep is where he left it the night before, and he climbs in. It's only when he's putting the keys in the ignition that he realises he doesn't really have anywhere to go right now. He sure as fuck doesn't want to go home, he can't go to school at six in the morning, and he can't go back to Liam. Tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, Zayn finally decides that Niall would probably be least upset by the visit of a broken idiotic teenager covered in sand and regret at six in the morning.

*

Zayn spends five minutes sitting on the hood of his Jeep and hurling pebbles at Niall's bedroom window. It's not so easy, as he's on the third floor of a beat up townhouse. Finally Niall gets the message, pulls open the window and pokes his naked top half outside, obviously just woken up.

"Hey," Zayn says, giving a pathetic little wave.

"You all right?" Niall asks, rubbing his eyes.

"Nope," Zayn replies, tossing a stone in the air and catching it again.

"Gimme a sec, I'll let you in," Niall says automatically, ducking back into his room.

"Thanks, man," Zayn says to no one, sliding off his Jeep and making for the door.

Niall is totally naked and covering his junk with a balled up t-shirt when he opens the door for Zayn. His eyes are tired but shining, too early even for him to be stoned, and he has a sleepy smile on his lips as he steps aside to let Zayn in. 

"I'd hug you, but," Niall says, instead planting a familiar kiss on Zayn's cheek. "I'm on my own, mom's still on shift."

Niall's house is its usual rattrap of coupons, fast food, half-finished doodles, sheet music for guitar, ashtrays filled with cigarettes, little tins of pineapple board wax, ziggurats of empty beer cans, and – dominating one entire wall – five surfboards. The place isn't much of anything – two bedrooms, a living room-kitchen hybrid, a bathroom – but Zayn's always kind of liked it. It feels filled up and loved in, partied in, full of the warmth of the lives of people inside, which at the moment is just Niall and his mom. 

"There's juice in the fridge, lemme get changed," Niall says, throwing the t-shirt into the laundry basket and walking naked back to his room.

Zayn flops down on the couch and helps himself to one of Niall's mom's cigarettes, Virginia Slims, and the last half of a big mac Niall left on the coffee table. He's finished half of the cigarette and all of the burger when Niall comes out in a neon pink tank top and chino shorts.

"Wow," Niall says, finally getting a proper look at Zayn, running a hand through the scruff of Zayn's fringe. "You're wrecked."

"Slept on the beach," Zayn says, gesturing to his hoodie covered in sand. "Really got in touch with nature."

"I thought you were staying with Liam?" Niall asks, sitting down on the couch across the room from Zayn. 

Zayn inhales a long breath of smoke, and lets it out by way of an answer. "Hey, could I use your shower?"

"For sure, man," Niall says, frowning. "You okay, bro?"

"I just really need some Niall time," Zayn says, standing up and pulling off his hoodie, and then his shirt. "I just really need to not talk about it, and not think about it, and not remember it, and then get really stoned with you."

"Definitely," Niall says, and he's smiling but there's a familiar glint of worry in the corner of his lips, the kind of worry that stings in reminder of Liam.

"Seriously, I'll be fine," Zayn says to Niall, to himself. "Let me get myself sorted out and we'll write our names in gasoline."

"And set it on fire," Niall answers.

"Really need some fucking Niall time," Zayn says, unbuckling his belt as he walks towards the bathroom.

"Well, you came to the right place," Niall shouts as Zayn closes the door behind him.

*

Zayn takes a long, searing hot shower, burning the scum of his hangover and the murky stink of the ocean off of him. When he comes out, a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair a spiky mess, Niall is at the stove frying up some eggs, a mug of black coffee steaming on the counter and waiting for Zayn.

"Yo, go raid my closet," Niall says without turning. "I'll be done in a minute."

Zayn smiles, and remembers exactly why he chose Niall. In Niall's apocalypse of a bedroom, Zayn picks out a white tanktop, a pair of acid washed jeans he doesn't remember Niall ever wearing, and a black gingham button-down shirt that he leaves spread open. They're a little tight, but fit well enough, smelling strongly of Niall, who isn't Liam.

Niall is just sliding their eggs onto plates when Zayn sits himself on a stool and takes his first craved sip of coffee. 

"So," Niall says, pushing a plate in front of Zayn. "No talking about whatever it is?"

"Please," Zayn says, taking a forkful of scrambled eggs and eating it almost without swallowing. 

"Fine with me," Niall says, digging into his own. 

They eat quickly and in silence, wolfing down their breakfasts in a kind of teenage race, getting it all down in less than a minute.

"So, I was thinking," Zayn says, taking another slug at the cruddy instant coffee. "We skip the whole day. Just drive down to fucking wherever, smoke a blunt, get some shit food, listen to some music, whatever. Just us two."

Niall raises his eyebrows in appreciation, nodding. "Sounds like a plan."

"Harry and Louis are going to hate us," Zayn says, and maybe there's a slightly wicked grin on his face.

"Hey, man," Niall replies, grinning himself. "If they bought the weed once in a while maybe they'd get to have a say."

"Niall?"

"Yeah, man?"

"You're fucking beautiful."

Niall goes pink, a coy _oh shut up_ smile he buries in his shoulder, and he punches Zayn gently in the arm.

*

They drive down the PCH, blasting the Dead Kennedys on the Jeep's tape deck, driving through the shitty bummed-out towns that line the highway like shitty pearls on their shitty string. The day comes out clear and warm, the cigarette burn of the sun burnt into the cloudless blue cloth of the sky. Zayn is driving to nowhere and pounding his hands on the steering wheel in time with the music, glancing over at Niall every now and again, the kid leaning back in his seat with his bare feet up on the dash and his smile infectious.

Second breakfast is an order of fish tacos from a roadside taqueria, and they eat their way through three each while Niall hollows out an old cigarillo and starts filling it with his weed, working with the kind of meticulous precision of a watchmaker or a silversmith. His fingers are small, pale white hands and nails bitten short, twisting the brown paper under itself neatly, his tongue bitten meditatively between his teeth. The result is a flawless blunt, made with the last of his ounce, that he hands over to Zayn with a proud grin.

"You are a wizard," Zayn says, turning it over in his hand. "It's perfection."

Niall pinks again, pushes his sunglasses further up his nose. "Naw, man."

"Let's find somewhere to smoke it, huh?"

They pull off the highway and onto a rough dirt road just a mile up from the nearest town. The path leads them down towards a rocky little beach nestled in between limestone and dirty scrub brush. It's a serviceable thirty yard stretch of coarse white sand, far enough from the road that the cars passing unseen behind them are reduced to a hush like a breeze, perfect for smoking up. Zayn drives right up to the beach and parks on the rough divide where dirt becomes sand. 

Niall jumps out of the car, kicks off his shoes, pulls off his tank-top, and walks into the surf like he needs to touch water every so often or he'll die. He stands there, hands on his bare hips, waves lapping against his ankles, staring out at the blurred line where blue ocean meets blue sky.

Though the mission of not thinking and not talking about it was going pretty smoothly, Zayn can't help but think, _why can't it be like this_. Sweet and casual, just the five of them best friends, in love with each other as easy as breathing, the way Zayn loves Niall. Niall is so easy, a nice day out together blazing up and eating dollar tacos and being in love. No need for the sweat-sticky and cluttered thing that takes up the Liam-sized hole in Zayn's heart. Zayn would kill to love Liam just like this, the way best friends ought to love without anything else to fuck it up. The worst is that Zayn knows it's his fault, he knows that's how exactly how Liam loves and how the rest of the boys love him, and that it's just Zayn and his helpless need for _more_ that's fucking up an already perfect balance. And then he remembers how Liam tastes, and how his soft lower lip felt when it was pressed against Zayn's mouth, and how hot his bare skin was against Zayn's, and, fuck, how much he wants that again, and again, until everything ends up fucked and broken.

"How about that blunt?" Zayn says, shaking his head like he's brushing off sleep, stepping up next to Niall.

"Let's do it," Niall says, grinning and sweet and the sun already growing a warm flush on his face.

The blunt is a thing of beauty, smooth and clean and it burns like a fucking dream. Niall offers Zayn first blood again for the second time in two days, a gesture that in Niall's language is a full-on pledge of eternal love. Zayn takes a few long breaths of the sticky smoke and lets them drift out of his mouth rather than exhale. They're leaning back on his Jeep and Niall giggles when Zayn manages to pucker his lips and push out a few trembling smoke rings. 

Zayn is already starting to feel it by the time they've burned off about a third of the blunt. The world gets that smudged, that slightly out of focus look he gets when he fucks about with his camera. Everything goes softer, more tactile; the air is silky, the heat of the car's metal prickling and electric, the sheen of sweat on Zayn's throat sparkling and fizzing like champagne.

Niall laughs, keeps up this steady little giggle for like ten minutes straight, one arm thrown around Zayn's shoulders and his sunglasses sliding low on his nose. He seems to radiate this feeling of explosive greatness, of unhinged joy, like this is the only way things should ever be: stoned and brilliant and fucked up forever. Zayn gathers it in himself, wild abandon, feeling more and more out of control, artificially happy and craving his catastrophe.

"Dude," Zayn says, the blunt almost down to nothing, lingering in the pleasure of his new mantra: _fuck it_.

"Yeah, man?" Niall says, dreamy and close.

"If I offered to suck you off, what would you say?"

Niall laughs, loud. "Seriously? What would I say?"

"Yeah," Zayn says, narrowing his eyes, wavering a little on the spot but suddenly knowing that he's serious, that he would actually suck Niall off, he would toke and grin and go down on him without even thinking. He just feels so damn good right now, riding something huge, something a lot out of his control. "What would you say?"

"Wait, are you serious?" Niall asks again.

"Yeah, actually," Zayn says, his voice suddenly going honest and full. Zayn isn't sure where it comes from, but here it is, fully-formed and immediate and halfway between an ache and a hunger. "What d'you say?"

"Zayn, come on," Niall says, still a little laughter but his tone dips somewhere more serious. "What're you talking about?"

"Like, just – you know what? Here, fuck it," Zayn says, and just like that he's dropping in front of Niall, his knees in the sand and his hands on Niall's hips. He hears Niall's little " _oh_ " and Zayn grins. It's as easy as anything, Zayn singularly focused on the abstract fucking need of it, the need to get Niall off, the need to taste him and get him to come, the _need_ of it. Zayn can't remember feeling a need like this, so fucking sharp, almost demanding that he do this. He flicks the button of Niall's shorts open easily, unzips the fly, spreads the cloth open to the striped boxers beneath. "This okay, man?"

"Holy shit," Niall says, but he doesn't try to stop Zayn. "Holy fuck, Zayn."

Zayn palms a hand over Niall's dick, getting hard just at the touch. "Shit," Niall says again, leaning back against the Jeep as Zayn mouths against the cotton of his boxer shorts, damp against the press of Niall's cock. "Shit, man." And Zayn looks up through his dark lashes and sees Niall lean his head back, eyes closed, putting the blunt to his lips and taking a long, slow drag. He breathes out the smoke with a hitch as Zayn tugs his boxers down over his cock, taking it in his hand and jerking him off a few times.

The whimper Niall makes when Zayn goes down on him is amazing, a filthy kind of boyish keen like he's helpless for it. Niall tastes a little salty, and he smells like soap and the sea, and Zayn loves that he can force Niall to make a sound, _that sound_ with just the flick of his tongue against the underside of his cock.

After a moment of hesitation, Niall puts a hand in Zayn's hair, not gripping really, just mussing up his dark curls like a reassuring little connection between them. Zayn goes down deep, takes all of Niall in his mouth until his nose is brushing against the coarse blond hair around his dick, pulling away slowly with the round of his mouth lingering around the head of his cock. Niall keeps taking long breaths of smoke, pushing them out on the little groans of his pleasure, his other hand gently brushing the back of Zayn's head and easing him down a little more. 

Zayn builds the rhythm, keeping short and fast around the head, the slight hiss of his lower teeth rasping against the bottom of Niall's cock. Zayn's never sucked dick before, but he takes to it easily, loving the attention Niall puts on him, how easily he can get Niall to love it. He can feel Niall getting close; the tremble in his thigh and the shiver in his hand, and Zayn doesn't let up. He looks up at Niall, his cheeks hollowed as he bobs over his dick, and Niall looks back with his eyes stoned-red and mouth wet and parted like he cannot fucking believe. 

"Zayn, I'm gonna –" Niall says, his thigh brushing against Zayn's cheek. "I'm gonna – fuck, man, I'm –"

Niall comes in Zayn's mouth. Zayn keeping his lips wrapped around Niall's dick as come pulses over his tongue, salty and bitter. Niall shudders as he comes, his fist going tight in Zayn's hair, that same sweet little groan sharp in his throat. Zayn tastes him in his mouth, wet on his lips, and when Niall opens his eyes and looks down at Zayn, there's a fucked kind of understanding that Zayn knows they'll never be able to go back from, and everything comes apart like a comet crashing to earth.

Zayn rocks back on his haunches and spits Niall's come into the dirt, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He sits there and looks up at Niall, and very suddenly he doesn't feel anything at all. His head is stoned and empty, his body weirdly exhausted all at once. It's strange, a feeling not quite elated and not quite awful, just completely disassociated from the moment, like what he just did was the work of someone else, for different reasons. Zayn isn't sure how he seems, but something changes in Niall's expression as he tucks himself back into his boxers, zipping up his shorts and buttoning them again, that look of complete understanding awash in the colour in his cheeks. It's almost like it happened too fast for either of them to even process it, but now in the stark and hollow afterglow Niall has caught up to Zayn's needy panic.

Niall crouches down next to Zayn, dropping the blunt in the sand, getting down on his knees beside him. Without another word, he wraps his arms around Zayn and pulls him in. Zayn feels himself being held, stiffens to it at first, but Niall just hugs harder and Zayn falls into him. He's still so wrecked, a hunger-pang kind of empty, and even though Niall knows almost nothing about the situation he's the best possible thing right now. He holds Zayn, props him up almost, and kisses his temple, and cheek, and jaw, his arms steady and strong around him. They sit there in the sand, under the sun, with the sound of the waves churning over and over, and finally Zayn just buries his head in Niall's shoulder, and his voice hitches, and then he just keeps breathing.

*

They burn off the rest of the day not doing much at all, just driving around and stopping every so often for Zayn to get a picture of something he finds kind of interesting; a tumble-down beach house, a rusted out old pickup, the usual urban decay bullshit that first attracted him to the camera. The two of them, combined, smoke an entire pack of Marlboros, sitting on the blisteringly hot hood of the Jeep, chatting in a way that's probably pretty unusual for a friendship that recently underwent a blowjob on a beach.

Niall doesn't seem bothered by it, really. If it were any other guy, Zayn would feel way too fucked up about it to actually spend the rest of the day talking bullshit about MMA and the basketball season, but with Niall it just kind of works, like it wasn't that big of a thing, that best friends do this with each other on the regular. And maybe Niall kind of understood why it happened, maybe kind of liked it, maybe kind of just likes Zayn enough to make it through.

"You going to Harry's tonight?"

"Course," Zayn says. "Keg Fridays are the best."

"I was trying to get Liam to come," Niall says. "But he's still stubbornly trying to be the world's best brother, it's really annoying."

Zayn doesn't reply, instead staring off towards the ocean, taking a sharp little drag off his cigarette.

"It's Liam, isn't it?" Niall asks after a little bit, his voice an almost apologetic whisper. "The thing you don't want to think about. It has something to do with Liam last night, doesn't it?"

Zayn could easily brush him off, but it's Niall, it's Niall and an afternoon of disaster that he's stubbornly refused to let Zayn face on his own. There's just something very comfortable about being with Niall, a kind of golden protection in sunburns and immediate unquestioned love. "Yeah. It's fucking Liam."

"You two have been friends since forever, man," Niall says. "I mean, friends are going to fight."

"It wasn't a fight," Zayn says hollowly, sucking down some smoke again.

"What was it?"

Zayn shakes his head, trembling smoke, wrapping his arms loosely around knees he draws up to his chest. He looks down at the dented hood of his Jeep. "My dad's leaving my mom. I kind of got kicked out of the house because I. Told him what I thought about it."

Niall nods. "I kind of knew. I know you don't like talking about your dad. I should have asked, though."

"Nah, man, it's cool," Zayn says. "I don't talk about that shit."

"So did Liam ask you about it or something?"

"Sort of. I mean, yeah, so, like, all that shit was going down, and I went to stay with Liam. And it should've been like it always was, since we were fucking kids, just our regular old shit, and then." Zayn finds his voice stopping there, like hitting a brick wall. "It should have been like it always was but it wasn't because I fucked it up. I fucked up, like, the one good thing I have going for me."

Niall takes the cigarette from Zayn, takes a meditative puff of his own and Zayn can actually see the realisation pass through him. He shifts about awkwardly, and Zayn knows it's just because he's trying to think of the right thing to say. There's a long lacuna in their conversation, filled with the waves and the hiss of cicadas and the sun shining in double on Niall's sunglasses. "So, it's Liam."

"Yeah," Zayn says, looking down at his dirt scuffed boots and undone laces. "Yeah, it is."

"So, all that this morning –"

"I just. Fuck. I just wanted to," Zayn bites his bottom lip, shaking his head, and it's so warm but he's shivering. "Just needed someone. I needed someone so bad I thought I was going to scream."

Niall nods, resting a hand on the back of Zayn's neck, rubbing his thumb over the knot at the top of Zayn's spine. "You've got me, dude." Niall shuffles a bit closer; Zayn can see his roughed up knees and the hair on his legs, half-blond going dark, and he can feel Niall rest his head on his shoulder. "You love him, don't you?"

Zayn takes the cigarette back, another shaking drag from it. He could deny it, because he's not even totally sure what it is. But for some reason, despite living a life of half-truths and skipped school and getting stoned, saying this particular lie seems almost impossible. "Just never felt like I need someone the way I need him." Zayn wants to say he isn't gay, or this isn't that big a deal, or that it's just a fucked up thing he'll get through one day. He wants to say he hasn't thought of the answer to Niall's question but it just isn't true. "Fuck it, yeah, I guess I fucking love him."

"Jesus," Niall says as he rubs Zayn's back. "That – that really fucking blows, man."

*

Zayn is painfully sober when he and Niall drive up to Harry's house. They're pretty late for the party so they have to park a long way down the street, and on their short walk to the house Zayn catches Niall's half-worried glance.

"You can relax, man. I'm just going to go and get fucked up and forget the last twenty-four hours ever happened," Zayn says, bumping his shoulder against Niall's. "Like I do every Friday. You can stop now."

"Didn't say nothing," Niall says though a smirk pinches the corner of his mouth.

"Sure," Zayn says, punching him in the shoulder and feeling a bit lighter for it. "If you want, we'll just get fucked up together, you and me, shot for shot."

"You don't stand a chance, dude," Niall says, sounding much happier. "Not a fucking chance."

"No cinnamon shit," Zayn says.

"No tequila."

"Deal."

"Deal."

Every Friday night since the end of sophomore year Harry gets three kegs delivered to his house (no one ever quite managed to figure out how a seventeen year old managed to buy that much beer with no fake ID and no money) and about a third of the student body show up to drink, fuck, punch, and live out loud. Harry's family isn't well off but they're the only ones Zayn knows with a properly big backyard; a half acre of runty palm trees and crab grass and prickly pear, ever the bane of drunk teenagers. It's just about the best place to get smashed in a hundred mile radius, and though Harry might not be the most popular kid in school, he's certainly the best known.

By the time Zayn and Niall wander into the overgrown backyard, Harry must be one, maybe two sheets to the wind. He has a cup of beer in each hand and still manages to give Zayn a spill-free hug when they walk into the circle of firelight.

"You total asshole," Harry says, flicking his hair back in a practiced shake. "That is the last time you leave me stranded at school."

"Sorry," Zayn says. "Had some shit to do."

"He had shit to do?" Harry asks, turning to Niall. "He had shit to do more important than rescuing me from econ and social studies? More important than _that_?"

"Yeah, man, big shit," Niall says, taking a beer from Harry's hand and draining half of it in one go. "Leave it, Styles," he adds, not quite menacing but a solid enough statement. Zayn presses a single thankful hand to the small of Niall's back.

"All right, cool, whatever," Harry says easily , turning now to guide Zayn deeper into the party, his free arm around his shoulders. "You have to check this out, though. You will never fucking believe it. Guess who's here."

"Is it Jesus?" Niall says, tossing the empty solo cup on the ground and taking Harry's other beer. 

"No, even better," Harry says, pulling Zayn through the throng of people, a mess of kids too young to be in high school to guys who have been graduated going on three years. They pass by the furious orange beacon of the bonfire, a boat race performed with shots of jager on a folding table, a load of freshmen getting stupid on wine coolers. "There," Harry says, pointing past his stone patio filled with smokers and into the kitchen window. 

Framed in the window and leaning against the kitchen counter with a shotglass in his hand and Louis' arm draped around his shoulders, Liam is animatedly talking to a group of girls from their graduating class. Louis must be on a roll because Liam's is bursting out laughing a lot, his sugar-pink lips already betraying the first few shots he must have had, leaning and swaying and bumping into Louis as they joke. He must have been here for a little bit, and, judging from the fact that he's actually choosing to interact with girls much cooler than him, he must be well on his way to tipsy. Zayn can only see the backs of the girls' heads but he's pretty sure Liam is striking out and Louis is finding that hilarious.

So that's it. Liam's not in Ojai visiting his sister. And he's not telling Zayn to quit getting stoned all the time and learn his multiplication tables. And he's not saying, no, sorry, he can't drink. He's standing in Harry's kitchen pounding back a shot of sugar and booze and laughing loud and raucous at some shitty joke Louis lobs into the conversation like a grenade. Most of all, Liam is spending the night at a party he definitely knows Zayn will also be attending. He actually seems to be enjoying himself too, and Zayn has to smile despite himself.

"Holy shit," Niall says. "He told me two days ago he wasn't coming."

"He told me yesterday he wasn't coming," Zayn adds. 

"He never comes," Harry says, his eyes dreamy-bright with booze. "He's actually _drinking_."

"Did Louis drag him here?" Niall asks, neatly snatching a beer from the hand of a drunk freshman. "With wild fucking horses?"

"Nope," Harry says. "Louis was helping me set up. He just appeared on his own an hour ago. Was asking for you."

"Me?" Niall asks.

"Nah, for Zayn," Harry says. "Go say hi. Go shoot. Go puke. Louis has my lighter and I've got some seriously sick hash I wanna try." 

Niall and Zayn stand there for a while, watching Liam and Louis – and now Harry, doing a running jump and climbing Liam like a tree, claiming a tipsy piggyback ride. The three of them collapse into shadow boxing and headlocks then, an idiotic pile of boy as the girls walk away unimpressed. Daft Punk is playing somewhere inside, the beat tinny and bass-heavy as it filters outside. The day might have cooled since noon but the bonfire is like a second sun out in the backyard, blowing its heat out like a dying star. Zayn can feel the heat prickle against the back of his neck as he watches Liam grin and blush as Louis plants an easy kiss on his cheek, a friendship like flying instead of falling. 

"You wanna go say hi?" Niall asks, sounding as nonchalant as possible. 

Zayn considers it for a moment, and then he pulls off the gingham shirt, tossing them onto an empty lawnchair. He stands there in his tank top, shining black tattoos curling up his bare arms, and all he can focus on is the brilliance of giving the fuck up. "You're three beers up on me. I need to catch up."

Niall looks like he's ready to say something, but then he shrugs instead. "Let's get going then, I'm about to be four."

*

Forgetting things turns out to be very easy for Zayn, though the seven cups of keg-frothy beer do a pretty good job of helping. True to his word, Niall sticks by Zayn's side without question, cheering him to the end of every chugged beer with backslaps, helping out when Zayn gets a brilliant idea like using burning sticks from the bonfire to light shots of Everclear on fire.

The party thins out a little as the night goes on – people passed out on the patio, in the grass, on the couches inside – but Zayn does a good job of avoiding Liam. Louis seems to have him tied up in the epic game of beer pong going on inside (twice the regulation length, double shots of rum instead of beer) so it isn't hard to stay out of his way. Zayn can see him sometimes when he walks by the open patio door; Liam with his back to Zayn, sinking the ball in a solo cup and making Harry down another burn of booze. Zayn remembers the ping pong table Liam has in his basement and the stupid amount of hours they wasted playing against each other as kids before they discovered girls and waves and music. No wonder Liam is kicking ass.

"Zayn?"

"Yeah?"

"Just go talk to him, dude," Niall says, hand sliding in around the small of Zayn's back again.

Zayn wavers on the spot. "Time for some more fucking shots, man."

The music slams like a drum, hammering the night air until it hums like a struck anvil. Zayn finds a group of people he recognizes from the classes he didn't skip; punky girls with their hair done up in red handkerchiefs like Rosie the Riveter, boys in plaid and beanies and tattoos on their wrists, the scummy kind of bottom-end kids Zayn likes most. The air smells like fire and burnt sugar and clove cigarettes around them. Zayn cuts his way into the middle of their mob where the dancing is heaviest, girls grinding against Zayn's front, a lean and drunk drama kid in a Black Flag tanktop sliding up to press against Zayn's back. He doesn't even care when the guy grabs his hips and grinds them back against his own, Zayn pressing his mouth against the girl's throat, the smell of her sweat and perfume rich and musky. Everything moves together, pushing and twisting as one, and the guy is grabbing Zayn's hair to pull his head back while the girl bites a mark against his throat and Zayn just lets go completely.

When Niall slides his way into the group – looking a little out of place with his backwards snapback and chino shorts – Zayn grabs his wrist and pulls him in to the mob, sliding his hips up against Niall's waist, leaning in to his ear. 

"I'm fucking wasted."

Niall laughs, slapping Zayn's cheek a few times. "You're giving one hell of a fucking show, bro."

Zayn feels himself float slightly, pressed against Niall and getting all the warmth of him. Just for a minute he feels the unrelenting fist in his chest open a little, relax into him, and Zayn knows it's the feeling of no longer caring what the fuck happens after this.

"You ain't seen nothing," Zayn says, his mouth hot against Niall's ear.

In minutes, Zayn's bare chest is slick with sweat and, lying flat on the patio table, a group of three amazingly beautiful girls go in turns taking a shot of tequila from his navel, blood-red lipstick imprints of their mouths on the flat of his stomach. Niall laughs the whole time, and when Zayn stands up and tequila dribbles down the edges of his hips and he lights a cigarette, he feels unbreakable for the first time in a long, long time.

*

Cigarettes burn down, snow and ash. Irish whisky slugged from the bottle. Running, falling, the cool wet of the grass as Zayn laughs and laughs as Niall stumbles and falls next to him and their laughter slows and dies and all that's left is the crowded rush of booze in his blood like putting your ear to a seashell.

"You're out of control," Niall says, patting Zayn's stomach a few times. It doesn't sound entirely like a compliment.

"I'm a volcano," Zayn says, laughing.

"Zayn, slow down, dude. For me, all right? I can't keep up with you."

"Why should I slow down?" Zayn says, splayed out in the yard and trying to catch his breath. "I don't need to stop."

"Dude," Niall says again. "Just breathe. I don't think this is what you want, man."

Zayn lies there, feeling Niall's hot hand on his stomach, his thumb playing in warm little circles over his bare skin, and he feels the grin fade from his lips. There is lipstick on his throat and on his stomach, the raw bruises from a guy's hands on his hips, spilled shots sticky on his chest, but underneath all that is the hollow whistle in his gut of something missing, something that isn't being filled by wildness, or Niall, or girls, or any of the things Zayn wanted so badly to work. It isn't working. It isn't fucking working.

"Niall –" Zayn stutters, turning to look at him, cool grass tickling his cheek.

"You're okay," Niall says, brushing the messy flop of hair from Zayn's forehead before he stands up. "Come on, let's chill, okay?"

"Loads of chilling," Zayn murmurs, letting Niall drag him to standing again.

Late into the night, patio chairs are assembled in a circle around the dwindling fire. Zayn falls into one and watches as Niall returns from Harry's bedroom with an acoustic guitar, settling next to Zayn with an _oomph_ and a goofy grin. He strums a clumsy chord, the first little bit of that Green Day song about having the time of your life until he gets booed down. Calloused fingers Zayn remembers setting in his hair while he sucked Niall off begin to pick out an old Bob Dylan song about not thinking twice because it's all right, and Zayn doesn't know what to do anymore. 

He leans his head back and closes his eyes and just listens to Niall play.

*

"Hey."

Zayn must have drifted off, but not for long. Niall is still playing, his cigarette-raspy voice stumbling along the lyrics, the party winding down to just the pluck of the guitar and the dry heaves of kids not ready for the big leagues. The air has stilled and without the breeze it's sticky-hot and sharp. Zayn opens his eyes, and Liam stands before him, silhouetted in the light of the fire.

"Oh."

"I've been looking for you," Liam says. His voice isn't slurred, but there's a heaviness like he's having a hard time turning his thoughts into words.

"Been here the whole night," Zayn says, gesturing limply to the fire. Liam seems so tall right now, and Zayn can't measure his expression from the shadows. "I didn't know you were here."

"Harry told you to come say hi." Liam folds his arms across his chest. "He said you were here."

"Oh, right," Zayn says. Niall's strumming slows, stops, and Zayn suddenly feels like he's been put under a microscope. "Sorry. I forgot."

Liam's shoulders slump. "Can we talk?" His voice seems raw, wrecked from too many shots and too much shouting. "Please?"

It's only when Niall kicks the leg of his chair that Zayn sighs and gives in. "Yeah, fine, okay."

They walk, a little unsteadily, to a small copse in the scrubs near the edge of Harry's lot. It's fairly secluded, lit only by the dim campfire and the pewter wedge of the moon, no one out here but them. Zayn gets a good look at Liam then: barefoot in his jeans, his white button-down shirt worn open, his stomach smooth and muscled in the gap of the shadows. 

"What'd'you want?" Zayn manages to say, tipping a cigarette out of its pack, settling it between his lips, and setting it to burn with his lighter. 

"Are you avoiding me?" Liam asks.

If Zayn were sober he'd have a better answer, instead he says: "Totally."

"What the hell did I do?" Liam asks, though he doesn't sound mad.

Zayn wants so badly to be angry at him. There's no reason to be angry at Liam, all the ruin is Zayn's own doing, but being angry at Liam is so much easier than missing him, and wanting him, and thinking about him. But Zayn knows he can't be angry, not two feet away from Liam, not when he's all soft and broken down and half-drunk and vulnerable. "I don't know," Zayn mumbles, his throat rough with smoke. "Actually I think it's mostly 'cause you didn't do a fucking thing."

Liam swallows deeply. "I didn't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I keep thinking about it. I keep thinking about you."

"Fuck," Zayn spits out. And he knows it's not Liam's fault, never Liam's fault, but he can't help feeling that he deserves some of this. Maybe just for being so good to Zayn, maybe because he just doesn't fucking see it when everyone else does, maybe just because he's so fucking easy to fall in love with and that deserves some kind of blame. "You just don't. Fuck you, Jesus Christ," Zayn says, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. 

"Do I seriously make you this unhappy?" Liam asks, so weak that Zayn almost wants to punch him.

"I want to fucking punch you," Zayn says, for lack of anything better to say.

Liam's frown wrenches Zayn's guts. "Would it make you feel better?"

"Fuck!" Zayn shouts. "That! That right there. That thing you fucking do like you'd rip your heart out of your chest if someone asked you to." Zayn's hands are shaking so he throws his cigarette to the ground and stomps on it. "Yeah, you know what, I do want to punch you."

"Do it," Liam says, his voice rising slightly. Zayn knows it wouldn't normally, but Liam is pretty tipsy and he's been forced into a corner and if he's feeling a tenth of the exasperation Zayn is going through they ought to be in a fist fight right now. "If it will let you be my friend, then do it. I don't care. Just – just be my fucking friend again."

And that's when it breaks. The stupid little curse word that Liam wouldn't say if he were sober, if he wasn't feeling so strongly. Zayn breathes deeply through his nose, that shock of campfire and fresh night air. "I hate that you can do this to me," Zayn says quietly, defeated. "I hate that you can decide how I feel. If I'm fucking happy or if I'm fucking wrecked, I hate that you get to choose."

"I don't choose," Liam says, his voice wobbling at the edges like he didn't really expect this. "Why would I ever choose to make you feel shitty? Why the hell would I want you to feel bad?" Liam sounds totally lost now, like he stumbled onto some dark path he never realised the two of them were going down. "I just want you back, I want us back. I don't even know what that even _is_ anymore, I don't know where we are but I don't care, I just want it back. So if punching me gets it back, then break my jaw, Zayner."

Zayn takes a step forward, and Liam flinches back a step. "Fuck."

"Are you going to do it?" Liam says, bristling slightly like he's expecting the hit.

Zayn draws the moment out as long as he can, wants to do it, can almost imagine taking the swing. "No," Zayn says, his throat tight. "I don't wanna punch you. I want to kiss you so bad, but I – fuck, I can't, and that's why – fuck."

Liam stands there for a minute, and then he shakes his head in exasperation, like he can't believe how stupid Zayn is. Zayn flinches, expecting a hit, but instead he feels the hard press of fingertips against his hips, a hand around his back pulling him in until Zayn feels his sweat-slick chest press up against Liam's, the sunburn of their skin and the smell of Liam, sweet with liquor and faded cologne and _home_.

"What are you doing?" Zayn asks, looking up at Liam, feeling the anchors coming undone.

"What I've really want to do," Liam says, a little more confident, a little stronger. 

"Fucking _Payner_ ," Zayn says, letting himself smile, just barely. Stupid fucking nickname, stupid fucking night, stupid fucking best friend.

Liam lights up, the word itself enough to just make him grin like it's the only thing he ever needed. And he leans in to take the punch.

Zayn tilts his head up to meet Liam's kiss. It's a rough thing, a sharp pain of teeth on teeth, their open mouths crushed together until they find the right way to do it. Zayn flicks his tongue against Liam's lips, runs it under the sharp edges of his canines, tastes the heat and sugar in Liam's mouth. Liam makes a sweet little noise of pleasure, and then Zayn traps the wet of his bottom lip between his teeth, tugging gently as Liam follows, tilting his head to get more from it. Zayn goes at him again, short, sharp snakebite kisses against his mouth, tasting the sound of Liam's laughter humming through Zayn when they lock lips again. It's hungry, the best kind of hungry, the kind that wants more while Liam gives more. 

Liam's lower lip is full and raw and bitten almost bloody. His tongue flicks against Zayn's own, shy at first and then wanting, until Liam is really holding Zayn tight and his fingertips press white circles in the flesh of his arms and waist where they bite in.

It can't last for long, the both of them too drunk, and of course it's Zayn that stumbles first, taking the wrong step back and dragging Liam down on top of him. 

The fall takes the wind out of Zayn, but when he gets it back he's laughing. Liam is on top of him, sorting himself out so he's kind of straddling Zayn, looking down at him fondly, the happy blush in his cheeks bleeding down to the brackets of his collarbones.

"I love you," Zayn says, looking up at Liam and the stars in his fucking eyes.

"You're fucked up," Liam says, still smiling.

"So are you," Zayn says.

"Yeah," Liam says. "I kind of see why you like this. It makes sense."

"I'm gonna remember this tomorrow," Zayn says.

"Me too," Liam says. "With the worst hangover known to man."

"And that's okay?"

"I love you, too," Liam says by way of an answer.

A beat of silence passes between them, a shiver of tension, and then Liam is shrugging off his shirt and rolling his broad shoulders in their sockets like someone stretching before a game. His tongue flicks along his top lip, bottom lip, and then he smiles like he's finally decided on something. With one last kiss, he crawls down Zayn's body, clumsily sliding down so he's on his stomach in the grass and between Zayn's thighs. Deft fingers at his belt buckle pops it open and spreads it wide, the button of his jeans and the zipper next, until Liam is tugging at the elastic hem of Zayn's boxer shorts. 

On instinct alone, Zayn lifts his hips off the ground to help Liam tug down his jeans and boxers. His dick is already hard, was hard just from the way Liam nipped at his mouth. It's a fucking testament to how good Liam is with his hands, stroking Zayn into a rough rhythm, that Zayn isn't freaking out about this. It just feels so fucking good, his bare back on the cool grass, one of Liam's hands on the inside of his thigh and the other working his cock, palm twisting around the head, good enough for Zayn to buck slightly into the touch. Jesus, a thousand alarm bells should be going off in his head right now – the thunderbolt cracks in their friendship, the crazy worry Zayn's had for weeks about fucking things up with Liam, the stubborn fucking love threatening to break it all – but they all stay quiet, because this feels so right that he can barely question the _why_. He's on his back in Harry's yard getting sucked off by his best friend of twelve years and he should be terrified, he should be panicking, but Zayn's never felt better, never felt safer in his fucking life.

Looking down at Liam is a trip. He's so damn built, his broad shoulders, the bulge of his biceps. He's on his knees and leaning forward as he finally goes down on Zayn. The warmth of his mouth is incredible, and it might be a little sloppy and drunk and a boyish first time, but the way Liam uses his tongue, the slight shear of his teeth sends electricity trembling down into Zayn's stomach and through his thighs. Liam's eyes are veiled by his dark lashes, but his lips are wet and filthy-red as he rounds the head of Zayn's cock and goes down again.

Zayn tightens his fists in the grass, tugs out handfuls of it as Liam bows deeper, going down as low as he can, until Zayn can see him taking almost all of his cock, pulling out again. The slight bulge in the pocket of Liam's cheek as he bobs over his dick is obscene, is so fucking hot that Zayn can't help but bury himself a bit deeper in Liam's mouth, fucking up into him as Liam goes down.

Liam makes this low, murmuring groan, deep in his chest, and it's enough to set Zayn off. He can feel his muscles gather and tight and he bucks up a few times and Liam takes it all so easily, takes Zayn all the way down, back up again, glancing up at Zayn with the devil in his eyes and then back down again.

"Liam, I'm so close, I'm so fucking close," Zayn grunts.

Liam doesn't stop, keeps doing that thing with his tongue, and Zayn tried to hold on as long as possible, trying to get every goddamn second out of it, but it's Liam, it's Liam's mouth he's fucking, and it's all Zayn can fucking take. 

"No, fuck, stop, I'm gonna come," Zayn manages to gasp.

Liam pulls off his dick, his shining lips grinning, wrapping a fist around the wet length of Zayn's cock. "Then do it, man."

Zayn does what he's told. Thighs trembling under Liam's hand, Zayn comes over his chest and stomach, Liam stroking every pulse out of him as Zayn throws his head back and squeezes his eyes closed and feels Liam's big hand get him off until he's used up and fucking done.

"Who the fuck are you and what have you done with Liam," Zayn says, his eyes still closed. He hears Liam laugh, low and throaty like he also kind of can't believe it. 

"Cause I'm drunk," Liam says. "Let's go with that."

Zayn lies there, spent and exhausted and somehow much more whole because of it. He's naked except for the jeans around his ankles, but soon he feels the rough brush of a cotton shirt on his chest and stomach, Liam cleaning him up gently. Zayn tugs his boxers and jeans up again, buckling them at the waist, and when he's done Liam flops down beside him in the grass.

"I can see why you like getting drunk," Liam says, a little far away and dreamy. "It – uh – simplifies things."

"The quickest point from A to B is getting smashed on Everclear and sucking off your best friend."

"Raspberry liqueur, actually. It's great."

"For thirteen year olds getting tipsy at a sleepover, sure," Zayn says, swatting at Liam's shoulder.

Liam laughs, getting looser and closer to sleep. "Promise me you tell me why you feel shitty next time, all right? Especially if it's because of me."

"Promise you stop buying me expensive gifts I can't ever hope to repay," Zayn replies.

Liam turns on his side, propping his head up on his elbow. His curly hair is a sweaty mess, the dampness after a surf, and his eyes bloodshot drunk, his lips sweet and red, his cheeks bright with heat. "Promise me you at least let me _try_ to help you graduate."

"Promise me you'll get off my ass about smoking," Zayn says, smiling at Liam's laughter.

"Promise me you'll try to learn how to swim."

"Promise me you won't forget this in the morning," Zayn says, his voice dropping quiet.

"I wanna make you happy," Liam replies, punch-drunk and dreamy and painfully sincere. "Sometimes I think it's all I wanna do. I've never loved making someone happy more than you. Since we were kids. Since you were my best friend. Just wanna make you happy. Just want you to always be in my life and for us to have this stupid thing we have. Never wanna go back from that. Never wanna go back again."

*

Morning is a too-hot pool of sunlight in the middle of Harry's bedroom floor. Zayn tries to ignore it but it makes him sweaty and hungover and gross. It's a familiar Saturday morning routine, waking up with his boys in a pile. People may pass out on couches and floors and patios but Harry's bedroom is reserved for their immediate circle. Harry and Louis are tangled side by side, half-on and half-off the mattress; Niall sleeps with Louis' stomach as a pillow, somehow still wearing his sunglasses through the whole night. They're all in different stages of undress – Harry totally naked; Niall and Louis in their boxer shorts – and sleeping soundly through the heat and the noise of people grumbling and waking up downstairs.

What isn't familiar is feeling his arm tingle with pins and needles because Liam is lying on top of it, lying with Zayn in the middle of the bedroom floor with their pillows and sheets scattered uselessly around them. It really fucking hurts but Zayn doesn't move because Liam – shirtless still, his jeans low on his hips – is curled up alongside him, his breathing damp on Zayn's bare shoulder, Liam's leg crooked up over Zayn's knees keeping them locked together in sleep.

"Hey," Zayn says, nudging Liam slightly. He'd savour the moment if he didn't feel like he was about to puke all over their friendship. "Liam, get up."

Liam blinks awake, takes a moment to register where he is exactly, his eyes flashing down Zayn's naked torso. "Hi."

"Could you –"

"Right, sorry," Liam says, lifting his head to free Zayn's arm. Zayn flicks it a few times, lets the feeling come back to it. "Oh my God," Liam says immediately after. "So _this_ is a hangover."

"Hey, now you're part of the club," Zayn says. "It's not very exclusive, though." Zayn watches Liam rub his face, the slight sheen of sweat along his cheekbones. "You remember last night?" he asks, can't help himself.

Liam blushes deeply and immediately, chewing on his bottom lip. "Yeah. I – uh. Yeah."

"Pretty impressive, Payner," Zayn says. "Really impressive."

Liam flushes a deeper red, but he's still smiling. "Louis, uh, Louis told me to, like. Carpe diem. So I, well, I carpe'd that diem."

"Diems were carpe'd," Zayn says, standing up, a little unsteady on his feet and groaning. "Fuck, my head."

"Where are you going?" Liam asks, rubbing the back of his head, shy little smile.

"Hanging myself from the shower curtain," Zayn says, extending a hand that Liam takes, hoisting himself up. "It's the only sure-fire cure for a hangover."

Liam grabs Zayn by the wrist, his hand sliding down to find his fingers. "No, wait, I've got a better idea."

*

Zayn drives his Jeep shirtless and barefoot, Liam shotgun and dressed the same. Saturday morning means the streets aren't terribly busy, and they make it to their private beach quickly in a rush of wind and the brilliant blaze of the sun lighting everything up in dusty oranges and bright clean blue.

Jumping out of the Jeep, Liam starts off towards the ocean, beckoning Zayn with a curled finger. Zayn follows, his head thumping as loud as his heart, and he meets Liam in the surf, cold water halfway up their shins.

"I _do_ remember last night, by the way, all of last night," Liam says, glancing over at Zayn with a playful smile. "I remember your promises."

"You also remember how I taste?" Zayn asks, shit-eating grin.

Liam pinks and his smile actually deepens. "You remember what you promised?"

"Fuck," Zayn says, looking out at the water. "You know, the ocean is scary as fuck. It goes on forever. Like even if you're looking at a fucking desert or something, there's at least something _there_. A rock or something. Look at that shit. It's flat and empty and goes on forever and I'm going to die."

"There are whales sometimes. They jump out. It's pretty cool. Besides, it will cure the hangover, I promise."

Zayn gives Liam a withering glance. "I doubt it." He pauses, watching Liam's smile. "Fuck, fine, what do you want me to do?"

"Seriously?"

Zayn starts to unbutton his jeans. "I'm done letting you down, dude."

Liam presses a kiss to Zayn's bare shoulder. "You never did, jerk."

"Fine," Zayn says, stepping onto dry land just long enough to kick his jeans off, landing in a pile in the sand. "I'm done just letting shit happen to me, how about that? I'm done letting shit slide. If I'm going to drown I'm going to do it my way."

Liam answers by laughing, unbuttoning his own jeans and throwing them next to Zayn's. He puts his hands on Zayn's shoulders and guides him out into the water. 

It's not so cold when he gets into it – though it does get hideously, momentarily freezing when the water hits his junk – and with Liam's big hands planted over the round of his shoulders, Zayn doesn't feel the build up of anxiety the ocean normally floods him with. Liam is with him all the way, guiding him deeper and deeper until the water is up to their chests, and it's almost kind of relaxing, in a terrifying way.

"Okay," Liam says, turning Zayn on the spot to look at him. "Basic of basics first. Floating. People are naturally buoyant so technically you don't need to do anything at all for it."

Zayn watches Liam's eyes, the slight lift of his lips in a smile. "Go on then, what's it called when you're floating face down."

"Dead man's float," Liam says, and before Zayn can groan he quickly adds: "That's just a name! It's actually a survival float. We'll learn that later though, let's try on your back first, yeah?"

"Yeah," Zayn says darkly. "Let's try that first." 

"All right, here, like this," Liam says. He flattens his hands down Zayn's back, dipping down to his ass, lifting him up slightly to ease his legs to the surface. Zayn goes stiff as Liam gets a hand under the crook of his knees, pulling Zayn up until he's lying horizontal to the surface of the ocean. "Dude, relax, it's easier if you relax."

It's only because Liam asks, and it's only because Zayn made a promise in the dark of a backyard –afterglowing and warm and propped up next to his best friend – that he lets himself go slack. It is a kind of nice feeling, floating. Weightless, drifting, his muscles relaxing and his mind going nicely blank, blank except for the image of Liam looking down at him and smiling, blank except for the touch of his hands hovering under Zayn's back, smoothing over his skin, keeping him level and floating. In that moment, the hangover does actually disappear, the knotted worry of his family fades, the panic over losing Liam to years of sickly built-up love goes away, and all that's left is Liam's hands holding him up and the feeling that this is the start of something.

"So, how are we going to bump up your bio grade, then?" Liam asks. 

"Fuck you," Zayn says, his eyes half-closed and floating free. "One stupid promise at a time, dude."

Liam grins, and when he leans down his kiss tastes like saltwater and sun.

End.


End file.
